{"id":9919,"date":"2024-04-10T03:23:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-10T03:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9919"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:32:25","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:32:25","slug":"the-only-other-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9919","title":{"rendered":"THE ONLY OTHER CHOICE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I grew up in the United Methodist Church.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

As a denomination, the UMC has long recognized the validity of women as pastors. What I learned when I graduated from seminary in the late 90s, was that not every person in the pew or in leadership was on board with the official stance.<\/p>\n\n\n

When I finished at Asbury, I got a call from my District Superintendent to ask my interest in filling a half-time position at a little congregation not far from my hometown of Shelbyville. I was very <\/b>interested.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

This man picked me up in his car and together we drove 20 minutes into the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n

There was no small talk. It was all business. This man was a little creepy, having the physical appearance of a live-action version of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons<\/i>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

He explained that we would be meeting with the church’s Pastor Parrish Relations Committee to discuss my possible employment.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

“I think they will be excited to have a young pastor like you, so I don’t anticipate any problems. But technically, they DO have the power to reject you.”<\/p>\n\n\n

Then he glanced at me and said in a tone which implied the confidentiality of sharing in a secret plot, “If they say they don’t want you, though, I will tell them that their only other choice is a WOMAN.”<\/p>\n\n\n

He was dead serious.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

(There was no woman. Fortunately, the church never called his bluff – they did want me.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I grew up in the United Methodist Church.\u00a0 As a denomination, the UMC has long recognized the validity of women as pastors. What I learned when I graduated from seminary in the late 90s, was that not every person in the pew or in leadership was on board with the official stance. When I finished […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9921,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9919\/revisions\/9921"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}